In the Preface of the book I have just started to read*:
fresh start
Explore. Dream. Discover
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowline. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain
Reviewing the blog – a rough path to follow
In February I changed the WordPress theme for this site. This started as a cosmetic gesture – I wanted it to be easier to read and easier to search. However, in the process, it has opened up new possibilities. At the moment, these possibilities are inklings at the back of my aging mind. Discovering them means teasing them out, being honest with myself about what I think I am doing . . . and why. Therefore the aim of this post is to review what’s going on beneath the surface and reassemble the contents. I want to do this without losing the ‘Folksong’ and ’Maritime History’ elements that I started back in 2006. The path I am taking roughly follows this route:
- Visualising the current content
- Reviewing the motives for writing the blog
- Deciding the tools for learning ‘on the job’
- Considering the content and how it might develop
- Putting it all together
- The final tweak . . .
- . . . and Publish
Plymouth to Salcombe
This series of five posts outlines a September passage from Plymouth to Teignmouth and back.
My son had a few days holiday owing and wanted to sail. We had a choice of Falmouth or Teignmouth. The wind direction and tides suited Teignmouth. To add interest on the way, we decided to overnight in Salcombe and Torquay. He was going to leave the boat in Teignmouth and I was going to return to Plymouth alone. In the event, we were weather-bound in Teignmouth for a week. A family holiday was imminent, so when the weather eventually eased, I had only a short time to return Blue Mistress to Plymouth. I planned a direct passage to Salcombe, to overnight there and then on to Plymouth. As it happened, I had a major problem off Berry Head which completely altered my passage plan.
~~~
(Click on image to enlarge. Double click magnifies)
If we had had a trip in which we fell out with each other, I would probably not have mentioned this, but we had a good time and I want to acknowledge it.
For a single-hander having someone aboard adds a whole extra dimension. The boat has been set up for one person. Ropes and gear have been placed to-hand and manoeuvers thought through in advance so that much of the routine on the boat has become automatic to me. I’m ahead of the game – most of the time. Few people want to be a passenger on a small boat, they want to be part of the crew. Therefore, having another person on board, someone who will inevitably do things differently, means my having to stand back and create ‘space’ for them to do it. How much space depends on the person.
Stillness in the dark
This series of posts has covered a short voyage. My original intention was to outline – (mostly in images), a trip I made up the rivers Tamar and Lynher in August and maybe make a few comments about waypoints. Experiencing the advantages and disadvantages of waypoints was the exercise I set myself for the trip. On the way, I learnt much more than expected. All voyages involve a personal journey of one sort or another, but, looking back at this one, there were so many things I hadn’t seen or done before. Like many people who finish their day job, I ask myself, “What on earth have I been doing all my life?”
~~~
I go on deck around 0500 to check the rode. I shortened it last evening to keep Blue Mistress out of the shallows as the tide fell.
It is dark. I have rigged an anchor light aft rather than on the normal fore-stay because it throws a useful light over the cockpit. The boat is only 25 foot long so the difference is unlikely to affect any passing boat. Of the two other anchor lights I can see, one is rigged the same way.
Drifting on about technology
The channel narrows and we pass close to ruins of the South Hooe Mine on the outside of the bend.
(Click on image to enlarge)
All the way along the reaches of the Tamar from here was a busy mining area. In its heyday, more tin, copper, silver and arsenic were mined in this region than anywhere else in Europe.
The mines eventually ran out and the mining came to an end very suddenly in the late nineteenth century, the villages and towns emptied and Cornish miners spread all over the world. In a small cemetery in Russell, New Zealand, I was very moved to find the grave of a young miner from Cornwall who died in the late eighteen hundreds. He had made the long voyage, found work . . . and died shortly afterwards, far away from home.
Once the mining had finished, the landowners landscaped the land and it was turned over to market gardening, but a number of remnants of the industry can still be seen – like these useful cuts in the bank.
A beard on a whim
I awake to an unfamiliar pillow. I touch my face and it isn’t the face I remember. A stranger looks back at me from the mirror. The post-shower drying ceremony has an extra twist.
Yes, I’m growing a beard. Three whole weeks without shaving my chin – hair is now covering the lower part of my face. Well, more of a stubble really – certainly can’t call it a real beard yet, but the end of the prickly stage, it’s beginning to catch the wind and I am constantly reminded that there is something there.
14/14 What next?
So the tack is complete, we are heading in a new direction, the wind steadier, the sea friendlier. If the change was rough – a few moments of intenser activity, then so be it. What comes next is now the interest. The poet put it this way:
“And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingles. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.”
from Here by Philip Larkin in Whitsun Weddings
Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. In the meantime, in the greater quest for understanding, I wish you fair winds and following seas. ~~~ Although it can be read as a single post, the above is part of a series that illustrates one of the author’s current interests, taken from a locker full of interests, at a major waypoint in his life. The series sets out as a comment on retirement before focusing around language. He wonders whether he himself has the language to cope as he steps out into the wider world popularly known as ‘retirement’ – an irreversible step into a world that he has previously only glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, a world in which he thinks the word ‘retirement’ to be a misnomer. He has used the medium of the blog to paint the picture. The irony is that, whereas writing about it does allow him to reflect, sitting alone at a computer actually distances him from the face-to-face interaction he is describing. 
13/14 Our choice
I took the following images in Teignmouth earlier this month during one of three exceptional storms to hit the UK.
When the waves swamp the very ground that we love – ground that has seemingly been there for ever, ground we have always taken for granted, should we shrug our shoulders and walk away?
Or should we look at it afresh and see it for what it is, the erosion of a fragile and valuable asset that makes a harsher world bearable?
Should we keep repairing it or should we let it go?
The tide of languages is flowing and unstoppable. In many ways it is exciting. It is evolutionary. But it is eroding the core beneath it – the relationship-base that lies at the heart of humanity.
Should we keep repairing it or should we let it go?
Whatever language we speak, it’s our choice and we have to decide . . . now.
~~~
Although it can be read as a single post, the above is part of a series that illustrates one of the author’s current interests, taken from a locker full of interests, at a major waypoint in his life. The series sets out as a comment on retirement before focusing around language. He wonders whether he himself has the language to cope as he steps out into the wider world popularly known as ‘retirement’ – an irreversible step into a world that he has previously only glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, a world in which he thinks the word ‘retirement’ to be a misnomer. He has used the medium of the blog to paint the picture. The irony is that, whereas writing about it does allow him to reflect, sitting alone at a computer actually distances him from the face-to-face interaction he is describing.
12/14 A child learns
I first read Dorothy Nolte’s poem in the 1970s. I can’t say it better than this.
(For those who speak the language of gender, please note that she later changed the wording to make it gender neutral – ‘child’ to ‘children’. I have kept to the original because that’s how I first learnt it but I acknowledge the difference).
Children (male and female) Learn What They Live
If a child lives with criticism,
he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear,
he learns to be apprehensive.
If a child lives with pity,
he learns to feel sorry for himself.
If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns to be confident.
If a child lives with tolerance,
he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with praise,
he learns to be appreciated.
If a child lives with acceptance,
he learns to love.
If a child lives with approval,
he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with recognition,
he learns that it is good to have a goal.
If a child lives with sharing,
he learns about generosity.
If a child lives with honesty and fairness,
he learns what truth and justice are.
If a child lives with security,
he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live.
If you live with serenity,
your child will live with peace of mind.
With what is your child living?
Dorothy Law Nolte
~~~
Do I have to spell it out?
If children live with suspicion, fear, grief, mean-spiritedness and vindictiveness, what are they learning?
If children live with understanding, respect and trust, what are they learning?
The world is full of the former. They get all the headlines.
The world is also full of the latter. But you have to work harder to see it.
~~~
Although it can be read as a single post, the above is part of a series that illustrates one of the author’s current interests, taken from a locker full of interests, at a major waypoint in his life. The series sets out as a comment on retirement before focusing around language. He wonders whether he himself has the language to cope as he steps out into the wider world popularly known as ‘retirement’ – an irreversible step into a world that he has previously only glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, a world in which he thinks the word ‘retirement’ to be a misnomer. He has used the medium of the blog to paint the picture. The irony is that, whereas writing about it does allow him to reflect, sitting alone at a computer actually distances him from the face-to-face interaction he is describing.
Beyond Steeple Point 